Python: Journey from Novice to Expert

Chapter 10. Testing and Logging – Preparing for Bugs

When programming, most developers plan a bit and immediately continue writing code. After all, we all expect to write bug-free code! Unfortunately, we don't. At some point, an incorrect assumption, a misinterpretation, or just a silly mistake is bound to happen. Debugging (covered in Chapter 11, Debugging – Solving the Bugs) will always be required at some point, but there are several methods that you can use to prevent bugs or, at the very least, make it much easier to solve them when they do occur.

To prevent bugs from occurring in the first place, test-driven development or, at the very least, functional/regression/unit tests are very useful. The standard Python installation alone offers several ...